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Will this website be used?

Ask yourself this question before building a website: "Will people actually use this website?"
To determine your purpose, the potential for usefulness should be considered.

Here's a list of 15 Ridiculously Useful Websites to use as case studies.

User Experience, Usability and Usability Testing

Understanding usability is the core to creating innovative design. If you find a way to present information with more clarity, your ability to design improves. I have been trying to focus more on "content" when designing than actual aesthetics. I've been trying to communicate the site's purpose and making everything clear, organized, and easy to find what you are looking for. When I saw UX Mag's site, I was amazed by the layout. I realized that it's a user experience publication and thought to myself "of course!" Then I realized that my design focus wasn't on "content" as much as it was on usability.

Usability Focused Site Design(s)

1. UX Mag: User Experience Publication

I hope I find more examples!

The mistake of ignoring usability
"Violating Design Conventions: Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don't have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience. Every time you release an apple over Sir Isaac Newton, it will drop on his head. That's good.The more users' expectations prove right, the more they will feel in control of the system and the more they will like it. And the more the system breaks users' expectations, the more they will feel insecure. Oops, maybe if I let go of this apple, it will turn into a tomato and jump a mile into the sky.Jakob's Law of the Web User Experience states that "users spend most of their time on other websites."This means that they form their expectations for your site based on what's commonly done on most other sites. If you deviate, your site will be harder to use and users will leave. " - no. 8 of the Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design

Best Practices
No link on the homepage that links to the homepage itself
site search is important

Case Studies
Wired Article "How Would You Redo the Google Interface?"
Design View: Google Redux
Design View: eBay Redux

Resources
UX Mag is a publication dedicated to providing information on user experience
Wide Open column: Digital Web Magazine
Jakob Nielsen: Useit.com
Human Factors International
Association for Computing Machinery
Adaptive Path
Fast and Simple Usability Testing
Criteria for optimal web design (designing for usability)
Who are the best communicators? features advertising best practices from David Ogilvy
User Experience Design Illustrated
30 Usability Issues To Be Aware Of

Read More
Twenty Usability Tips for Your Blog — Condensed from Dozens of Bloggers’ Experiences
Things to avoid when creating a website
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes
10 Ways to Increase Blog Usability

Don’t do this on your website, it bugs me

Art is for artists to talk about - nevermind you, you commercially employed worker cranking out disposible art as fast as you can

Critics and Their Purpose talks about the impotance of an artist's intention. Therefore, it should be safe to assume that pieces without intention are a waste of criticism.



Designing Under the Influence included some interesting and non-so-interesting comments:



"Similarly, at this stage of design and art history, I wonder if knowing all the precedents might actually inhibit a designer's ability to get any work done."

--- It's discouraging. I'm suppose to brace a contraint that no matter how much information I memorize I will always stand the possiblity of being accused of copying someone.



"If you don't know who Barbara Kruger (or anyone else for that matter) is, are you not in the slightest way driven to find out? I would question your motives in becoming a Graphic Designer if you really haven't got the slightest interest in Graphic Design (Harsh, but it certainly seems that way)."

--- I don't know who Barbara Kruger is. I probably don't know half of the "anyone else" on her list for that matter. College Education is not standardized. Not everyone will have exposure to the same artists. I'm not slightly driven to find out who "futura bold italic in white on solid color" is. My artistic interests are not the same as hers (Harsh, I know).

Ok! Ok, ok, ok, ok, I'm off topic and so is the person who wrote that comment.

Here are the serious questions that this comment posses. Why would anyone need to study every artist presented to them? Why is it not ok to know every artist? Can artists be allowed to learn about art in their own way AND not be accused of being "not driven" or "uninterested"? Should anyone who doesn't know who Barbara Kruger is just fucking die? What's more cool - asking questings to understand OR making presumptive remarks followed by self declarations of what a "harsh" observer you are?

Why History? Why Bother? poses the question: what merits of your work as a graphic designer could replace the importance of your client list?

The Ecstacy of Influence talks about plagerism, intellectual property, unailienable rights, copyrights, and gifts

Clarifying design from art:
"...I don’t think any design succeeds on visual merit alone. That’s called art. Whereas design is only one part of a larger process that creates something (web app, store, propaganda campaign, etc.) where success is determined as a whole." - Greg Storey in a comment on Pretty Ugly

Starting to create a word press theme

Wordpress - designing without style has a zip file to start with that removes unneeded code so you can start with a fresh pallette

Frameworks to start with

Web Designer Profile: Mark Boulton

website: http://www.markboulton.co.uk/
Based out of: UK
conference: @media
book: Five Simple Steps: Designing for the Web
talks about: css, typography, grids
devoted fan of: expression engine, mt, and apple

His Articles that I've Enjoyed:
Web designer’s guide to print design
One Principle to Design By

Print Design Research

The perfect article for moi:
Web designer’s guide to print design by Mark Boulton

Resources:
Print Design vs. Web Design (Alertbox)


Print Artists:
Ben Hulse Design
Janette Y. Fong has a PDF on typography which is neat
Jealous Kids and Lilly Lin Senior Portfolio
Ben Frank

Inspiration:
Cool business card designs

Finding Inspiration On the Internet

I've been adding artists, web designers, and websites that have something that I liked that gave me inspiration. I just noticed that I listed someone twice. It's not hard to do when the list gets as long as it has but it's sign that I've come full circle surfing through the same repeat content. I'm going to visit my list and take time on each site and document what I like. Some of these people may have already redesigned by now.

http://www.iheartluxe.com/
The ornate stuff is cute. I like it when it's used for woman's fashion sites.

http://jeremiahshoaf.com/

I've been visiting this site since 2003 and watching it transform. It's one of the first portfolio sites I stumbled upon while in school. I think I just have a personal interest in seeing a portfolio site change as time goes on. Let's see what wayback machine has to offer us...

Before I saw his portfolio (2002):


Oct 2003 when I first saw his portfolio:

Now:

http://mercurycloud.com/

This reminds me of vintage fabrics.

I like multiple things about this:

• white circular diagram


• layering transparent boxes over texture over picture without overkill and decreasing readability


• white text with small-caps and orange-red background on orange on yellow-orange is very, very powerful
  

http://tonyyoo.com/v2/

I liked the folders either the colors or to use as tabs on something.

Shoulda documented these:

If I only had some screen shots to prevent these problems....

I don't know why I bookmarked these:

http://www.5nak.com/

http://www.cabanadigital.com/en/about/

http://lukestevensdesign.com/

http://www.kindnessandhumility.com/

These won't even load:

http://www.shopspicebox.com

http://www.svenigson.com/ (This is the person I listed twice.)

dugged :) !!!!

Sketch as part of the web Design process

d.Construct take it to a whole new level

They're All in the Same Gang

Oh, a link to Vitamin again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what is that? I'll get to it later. And why is it listed among the likes of alistapart, eric myer, mezzoblue?

Answer: Their Advisory Board consists of...
*Dan Cederholm: SimpleBits
Thomas Fuchs: Script.aculo.us
Cal Henderson: Flickr
*Molly E. Holzschlag: molly.com
*Shaun Inman: Mint
Jeffrey Kalmikoff: Threadless
*Eric Meyer: meyerweb.com
*Mike Rundle: 9rules
*Dave Shea: CSS Zen Garden & mezzoblue
*Jeff Veen: Google
*Ryan Carson: Carson Systems

*all authors on alistapart and/or referenced in alistapart articles

They're all in the same gang!

So I will start to map out the Gang connection starting with ALA as a connection source:
ALA
}SimpleBits -- Dan Cederholm
}Mint -- Shaun Inman
}9rules -- Mike Rundle
}CSS Zen Garden -- Dave Shea
}mezzoblue -- Dave Shea
}Adaptive Path -- Jeff Veen
}Zeldman Presents -- Jeffery Zeldman
}HappyCog -- Jeffery Zeldman
}Various -- Ryan Carson, Eric Meyer, Molly E. Holzschlag

Icon - ography

[Fireside Chat] Icon designers (Part 3 of 3)
Josh: Well, our ongoing side project is IconBuffet: http://www.iconbuffet.com/. It’s morphed into this freaky social-type-network for designers and creative types

Icon Design: Anti-Aliasing

Lorem Ipsum Generators

The one I normally use was down today. It's good to always have a back up.
My Back Up: http://www.lorem-ipsum.info/generator3

Glossy Globe Logo Design

How Web 2.0 Logos are drawn (Photoshop)
Starting with a flat map
Glossy Globe Tutorial from a stock photo
They suggest finding an image from google. I like checking flickr because you will see something unusual.
Search for other terms than globe - wireframe, planet...
Buy A Glossy Globe Kit (Lucky Oliver makes it fun to browse and the pricing isn't bad either.)
.MAC style globe
Making a Glass Orb
Shiny Sticky Note

Fashion Site References

Couture Designers:
Chloe
jovovich-hawk

Collaborations With Illustrators:
Catalina Estrada

Site Design Ideas:
Reference for a Clean Layout

Independent Designers:
True Love and False Idols

Aution Sites:
Good Will Auctions
Amazon

Fun:
Polyvore

Grids

Grid System for Layout
1. determine the layout size (based on which screen resolution you choose for web design)
2. choose a ratio:

• 1:3
• 2:1
• 1:1.1.618 (Golden Section)

3. Convert the ratio you choose to percentages



Subtraction's Grid Computing and Design

Google BluePrint
-- sample website
-- demonstration of the grid
-- demonstration of the typography
-- quick tutorial

Reading List
Five simple steps to designing grid systems
best articles and resources on the subject
Thinking Outside the Grid
grid background image
Grid Computing
Grid-based design: Part 2, Designing blog theme templates
Fracturing / Abstracting the Grid

distressed or grunge look

Tutorials:
Making a Grungy Text
Ocean Ripple Grunge Border in PS

Inspiration:
Cameron Moll Interview
30 Dirty Designs
Big Cartel
Misprinted Type
WWL

Visual GUI Design and Designing Graphics for a UI

ASP.NET Reading List:
ASP.NET for Designers
A Sneak Peak at MasterPages in ASP.NET 2.0
Creating Template-Driven Web Sites with MasterPages

Resources:
Usable GUI Design
MSDN Design Templates
Tips and Tricks
Skin Crafter
Icon Experience
User Interface Design for Web Applications

Inspiration:
Apple .MAC
http://www.htmllife.com/
http://www.infectedfx.net/
http://devlounge.net/
http://thecity.org/
http://www.snook.ca/jonathan/

The Future of Web Design is still unknown

"todays hegemony of signal designers" - viceroy321 describes the web designers of now in a comment to an article on Web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0: A Design Perspective

CSS:
The Future of CSS (direct PDF download) - Andy Budd [Apr. 2007]

Cute Drop Quote

I like this drop quote on Designing for the Web [Jan 2006]:

Web Design Resources

Lorem Ipsum Generator
216 Color Web Safe Pallete
HTML Toolbox shows errors
Browser Photo screenshots in 16 different browsers